


It's Not Christmas 'Til Somebody Cries

by in_deepest_blue



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Child Warlock Dowling, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Warlock Dowling, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Dowling Era, Gen, Implied Aziraphale/Crowley, Warlock Dowling Loves Nanny Ashtoreth, implied Nanny Ashtoreth/Brother Francis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_deepest_blue/pseuds/in_deepest_blue
Summary: It is common knowledge that for all the festiveness that it brings and the sentimentality that it evokes, Christmas is also a time when chaos hangs pervasively in the air — a phenomenon that a certain demon named Crowley loved to sum up as "it’s not Christmas ‘til somebody cries."Spending Christmas at the Dowling estate, with Warlock acting out, Nanny Ashtoreth witnesses this phenomenon firsthand.Inspired by the Carly Rae Jepsen song of the same title.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	It's Not Christmas 'Til Somebody Cries

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to finish this in time for Christmas Day, but alas, I wasn't able to! Ah well, better late than never. Belated merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it! I hope you had a good one, though if you weren't feeling the festive spirit (honestly understandable, given how this year has been), I hope you were able to find something to help you get through your day.

It is common knowledge that for all the festiveness that it brings and the sentimentality that it evokes, Christmas is also a time when chaos hangs pervasively in the air. Breakups, fights over who has the better present, stress over hosting the perfect Christmas party, you name it — collectively, a phenomenon that a certain demon named Anthony J. Crowley loved to sum up as “it’s not Christmas ‘til somebody cries.”

Contrary to common misconception, though, Crowley had no hand in the time-honored tradition of brewing trouble during the Christmas season. The humans had come up with it all by themselves, long before Hell had instructed Crowley to do so; all Crowley had to do was take credit for it, earning him a commendation for initiative in the process.

Truth be told, while Crowley couldn’t help but occasionally revel in the chaos[1] and was not above adding fuel to the fire when he felt like it, he knew how much Christmas meant to Aziraphale[2], and he didn’t want to seriously upset his angel. But count on humans to be, well, human. What started with turning Christmas into an exercise in commercialism just snowballed from there.

But, as Aziraphale liked to say about evil containing the seeds of its own destruction, Crowley’s misdeeds — including those that he actually had no hand in — had a way of boomeranging their way back to him. Now, several centuries’ worth of occasional[3] delight that Crowley took in petty Christmas-related misery had finally caught up to him.

Warlock was five years old now, and was celebrating Christmas in Britain for the first time. The Dowlings usually spent the holidays in America, but this year, they’d decided to host a party in their cushy London home, inviting their relatives in America to the other side of the pond instead. To Harriet Dowling’s immense relief — and to Warlock’s delight, Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis just happened to have no plans for the holidays, and didn’t mind spending Christmas at the Dowling estate.

As expected, everything went just about as well as one of Hell’s favorite laws[4] dictated. Hours before the party, Harriet drove herself into a frenzy, fussing needlessly over every single detail; she had guests to impress, after all, and she didn’t want to lose to her sister when it came to hosting a grand Christmas Eve dinner. Then, at the party, one of the guests — most likely someone on Thaddeus’ side — had the lack of common sense to bring up politics, sparking some very uncomfortable and heated discourse.

The children were no better, as a smug boy declared that Santa was dead, making the younger children cry. Warlock had decided that Christmas Eve was a good time to tell the children all sorts of scary stories set on Christmas and random horrific facts that he’d learned from no less than his Nanny, which made even more children cry. He’d been acting out, too, answering the adults’ questions with snippy, sassy quips and ruining group photos.

And Crowley, or rather, Nanny Ashtoreth, had a front-row seat to all the madness, but no way to excuse herself — she was tasked with keeping an eye on Warlock, after all. And although her actual employer would’ve wanted her to encourage the boy’s proclivity for mischief, she had to at least try to rein Warlock in. 

This was all too much for her to deal with at that moment; she just didn’t have the energy to even revel in all the negativity, let alone think of including them in her next report to Down Below[5]. What she’d give to see Brother Francis right then and there. They were planning to share some drinks later in the night, just the two of them — if only that time could come sooner.

Finally, Nanny Asthoreth’s out came in the form of Warlock being sent to his room for getting into a fight with some other country’s ambassador’s son, who’d laughed at Warlock for having a “weirdo” for a nanny. Warlock had demanded that the brat take that back, and things would’ve gotten ugly from there had Harriet and Ashtoreth not intervened.

Later, in Warlock’s bedroom, the boy whispered, with all the sheepishness of a child caught taking extra cookies from the cookie jar, “Nanny?” 

“Yes, Hellspawn?” came Nanny Ashtoreth from Warlock’s bedside.

“Um… you said that I can’t get away with the perfect crime if I tell people about it, but… I did those things on purpose so mom would send me to my room. ‘Cept the fight part. I didn’t start that on purpose, honest! I just got mad hearing that kid say mean things about you.”

“I suppose I should thank you for defending my honor, young Warlock, though it’s not as if I need protecting. Nanny can take care of herself.” _And for giving me an out from that absolute headache of a party,_ Ashtoreth thought wrly. “But why wouldn’t you want to play with the other children, or perhaps eat some cake?”

“It’s so boring there, Nanny! All the grownups talking about blah blah blah, and the other kids are no fun. It’s more fun with you and Brother Francis!”

Nanny Ashtoreth arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yeah!” Warlock jumped up and down on his bed, beginning to ramble enthusiastically. 

“I just know that it’s gonna be an awesome Christmas with you two! So let’s go bother Brother Francis now. I know you wanna, and he totally wants to see you too! Though I should say sorry to him, and of course to you, ‘cuz he said to not give you a hard time at the Christmas dinner, ‘cuz you already have lots to deal with, but I didn’t listen. An’ he said that we should go visit his cottage if things get too much, and I promise I won’t stay up late so I can wake up early tomorrow morning to open my presents from Santa, so pleasepleaseplease...” The young boy tugged on his Nanny’s hand, pleading insistently to visit Brother Francis.

To say that it hadn’t been the best Christmas Eve was an understatement, but in that moment, Nanny Ashtoreth’s demonic heart felt the love that her angel so enjoyed gushing about around the holidays. And in that moment, she thought of another clever young boy — the very reason for the night’s celebrations — who’d told her so long ago, “I don’t care what people think of you, Crawly. I like spending time with you.” 

She was never quite sure whether she and Francis were raising Warlock right, but in that moment she figured that they must’ve at least not been doing it all wrong… which begged the question of whether, perhaps, the Antichrist was not quite the monster they’d imagined him to be, but perhaps that was a question for another time.

“Nanny? You okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, my hellspawn. It’s just that one of my eyes hurts. You know how sensitive your old Nanny’s eyes are. Must’ve been those Christmas lights.”

“Silly Nanny, but you’re already wearing those super-dark sunglasses! Now let’s go see Brother Francis before my bedtime!”

Well. It’s not Christmas ‘til somebody cries, indeed.

* * *

1He was a demon, after all; he invented schadenfreude.[return to text]

2The spirit of it — the love and warmth that came with the season — more than the stiff rites, followed by the organized “merrymaking,” that Gabriel and the other Archangels so loved, of course. It also didn’t hurt that Christmas meant good food and no customers.[return to text]

3“I swear, angel, I don’t actively cause misery on Christmas or during the season — I just stoke the fire sometimes, so to speak!” Crowley would insist, years later, after the world didn’t end, and he and Aziraphale were celebrating their first Christmas as a couple.[return to text]

4Murphy’s, of course: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”[return to text]

5Though she eventually did think to do so later.[return to text]


End file.
